molan

Found out what the pickup is. It’s a custom wound Curtis Novak. Sounds clean and crisp with the tone wide open and punchy / growly with it wound off. Responds really well to subtle changes in how hard you play with fingers. In that closed position it can deliver a really smooth, full, sound if played with care and then turns into a bit of a rock monster if you hit the strings harder. Perfect for moving from Bad to Beautiful Day or those classic U2 slower songs that build and build to a more aggressive climax. I gigged it last night and really liked it!

There’s a matching J as well. I’ve seen pics of him with the J.

I’ve had a go at something similar, and for the same reason! Mine was based on the Lakland Clayton P style signatures. US body, McIntyre J neck, some vintage hardware I had kicking around and a US custom wound pickup - must track down my invoice for that as it was quite expensive!

I’ve had a first trawl back on my emails and can’t find any information on this. The neck marking does look familiar and I have a feeling it is a Rick’s Fine 52 build but can’t be sure. If so, everything will be very high quality with some hardware being original and everything else being ‘period correct. I have some Bassgear archive material buried away. I’ll try to dig that out and see if there’s anything there.

I’ve used a Ritter as my main gigging bass for over 10 years now. They are surprisingly resilient and the high gloss finish still looks like new

I’ve owned quite a few of Roger’s basses and I’ve always thought that it was this ability to sit so nicely in a live band mix that makes them special.

Although I own a number of other basses, they rarely get any playing time these days as my Ritters just ‘work’ for me so well. My poor 60’s Fenders only get played about once every 2-3 months :( I have five of them now and I’ve gigged all of them except my black Victor tribute (built by Jens in honour of my dear friend, and colleague, Vic Davies). I just love everything about them, light weight, lots of tonal variation, slim necks, fractionally shorter scales etc. Simply the most ‘playable’ basses I’ve ever owned. Your Roya looks lovely. I think the Roya body shape works better as a 5 than my usual 4’s. I’ve owned a couple but the upper horn position holds them slightly differently to my others and I kept finding my fingers drifting across 2 frets. Random pic of my Ritter wall in my study:

Get out of here - it’s fabulous. The horn section is to die for!